Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
Lean Enterprise Self-Assessment Tool (LESAT)
Case Studies for Enterprise Transformation Training
CASE 2 - Electronic Systems Incorporated
Prepared by Cory R. A. Hallam, LAI/TMP Doctoral Candidate, November 2001
Cases are constructed from data and information obtained while researching U.S. aerospace firms
within MIT's Lean Aerospace Initiative consortium. The exact data and corporate information do not in
any way reflect a single U.S. aerospace firm that participated in the MIT research. Each case is
constructed from data from multiple participants, and appropriately modified in order to demonstrate a
particular management issue associated with Lean Enterprise Transformation.
Introduction
Electronic Systems Incorporated (ESI) is an electronics systems company with facilities
in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas. ESI has four primary business units,
namely Radar (commercial and military), Data Bus Design and Integration (commercial
and military), Electronic Warfare System Integration Services, and Fire Control System
Development. The company runs each business unit as a separate enterprise serving
individual customers, but share common support services such as Finance, Human
Resources (HR), Business Development, and Procurement, each of which functions as a
cost center for the company. ESI employs 11 000 people, has annual revenues of $1.9
billion US dollars, and has over 450 suppliers.
ESI has been a member of MIT's Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) consortium for two
years, and has sent their business unit executives to the annual LAI plenary conference,
Executive Board meetings and some of the LAI lean workshops. The president of ESI,
Ray Leblanc, is convinced that the changing landscape of the aerospace industry is
creating a need for ESI to find a new source of competitive advantage in the commercial
side of its businesses, while making itself more attractive to its military customers in its
defense contracts. In Ray's opinion, the future of ESI is to create a lean enterprise. He is
banking on the fact that transforming to a lean enterprise will reduce overall operating
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
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Lean Aerospace Initiative
costs, increase profitability, make the company more competitive on government
contracts, and provide better returns to their shareholders. While Ray wants to transform
quickly, he is unsure of the state of leanness of his company. He knows that the business
units have some very good managers, but overall is uncertain about the understanding or
use of lean principles within the organization.
In the past 3 months, Ray Leblanc promoted Allison Hughes from VP of the Radar
business unit to VP of Lean for ESI as a means to orchestrate his lean goals across the
enterprise. Working closely with Allison, and the executive committee comprised of the
business unit and cost center leaders, Ray has initiated a strategic planning process with
Lean at the core of the operations philosophy for the company. Guided by LAI's
Transition to Lean (TTL) Roadmap, Allison has helped coordinate the lean
transformation planning and decided that an assessment was necessary to establish a
baseline understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of ESI with respect to becoming
a lean Enterprise. Within days of the strategic planning sessions, Allison began preparing
to use LAI's Lean Enterprise Self-Assessment Tool (LESAT) with the business unit and
cost center leaders as a means to understand the current state of leanness in each of these
groups at ESI.
LESAT Sessions
The first LESAT introductory session was planned and executed within a month's time.
Dr. Deborah Nightingale, Dr. Joe Mize, and Cory Hallam from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology were present for the first LESAT introduction session. Dr.
Nightingale provided an overview of the tool, and then Allison described how the
assessment would be performed. It was her intention that the executives would take the
assessment back to their respective business unit or support function and perform the
assessment with their respective senior management committees. She would then collect
all of the results and compile them to get an overall picture of the state of leanness of
ESI. Ray Leblanc asked that the executives make this assessment a priority for
themselves and their senior staff. Specifically, Ray said:
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
"Folks, it is my opinion that the move towards a lean enterprise is at the core of
our future success. I am considering the work that Allison is doing in this
assessment a priority for all of us, as it will establish a better understanding of
where we are and where we need to go as a lean enterprise."
The ESI executives left the meeting with their LESAT books in hand, and with
instructions to get their results to Allison within two week's time. While there were some
questions for Allison to field during the assessment period, all of the results were in
within two weeks. Using a spreadsheet, Allison compiled all of the results and began
preparing for the report-out session. It took some effort to coordinate schedules, but the
executives at ESI were able to find a common time to meet the following week.
LESAT Results
Allison began the report-out session by reviewing the purpose of the LESAT with the
executives. She then reminded them of the generic definitions associated with the
capability maturity model used in the assessment (Appendix A). Allison presented the
general results shown in Table 1 as her high-level summary and commented on the fact
that their overall assessment of about a level 2 indicated that there was a general
awareness of lean with informal approaches deployed in a few areas with varying degrees
of effectiveness.
Section I – Lean
Transformation/Leadership
I.A Enterprise Strategic Planning
I.B Adopt Lean Paradigm
I.C Focus on the Value Stream
I.D Develop Lean Structure and Behavior
I.E Create and Refine Transformation Plan
I.F Implement Lean Initiatives
I.G Focus on Continuing Improvement
Section II – Life-Cycle Processes
II.A Business Acquisition and Program
Management
II.B Requirements Definition
II.C Develop Product and Process
II.D Manage Supply Chain
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
Average = 2.2
2.8
2.7
1.7
2.2
2.3
1.6
1.9
Average = 2.2
2.5
2.4
2.9
1.7
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
II.E Produce Product
1.8
II.F Distribute and Service Product
1.8
Section III – Enabling Infrastructure
Average = 1.7
III.A Lean Organizational Enablers
1.9
III.B Lean Process Enablers
1.5
Table 1 - Level X.X Average LESAT Results
Additionally, it was pointed out that their enabling infrastructure was averaging below a
level 2 in the assessment. The full list of current-state LESAT results is provided in
Appendix B, including the average LESAT practice values based on all eight respondents
and the ranges* in responses. Seeing these results, the director of Data Bus Design and
Integration, Sandra Evans, had several questions:
"How does this compare to our competitors in industry? Are we scoring too
low? What does this score mean to us?"
Allison reminded the executives that the assessment was an internal perception of their
maturity, and not an industry standard tool for comparing multiple companies. She
continued by saying that the meaning of the results is a statement of their current leanness
as per the description of the 54 LESAT measures. Ray Leblanc then said:
"I think we have to realize that we are only just starting this transformation
process. We are obviously doing better in some areas than others. The areas
where we are not doing as well should be an indication of a need we have to
address."
The discussion in the meeting then centered on a review of each of the LESAT X.X-level
averages provided in Table 1. The executives reviewed each result, then discussed the
impact the result would have on their lean transformation plan. While this seemed to sit
well with the business unit leaders, some of the support function executives were having
*
The range is a measure of the variability in responses and is calculated as the highest maturity level the lowest maturity level for the set of responses to a given LESAT practice.
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
some difficulty understanding their role in the whole value stream process. James
Devans, the director of Finance, spoke up:
"I can understand that we have to improve in areas like focusing on the value
stream, where we scored a 1.7, or managing the supply chain, where we also
scored a 1.7, but I am unclear of how the Finance department provides value to
the end customer. I would like to figure this out"
This point raised several further questions about how the value stream was defined and
from whose perspective. Was it solely the customer's perspective, or did each function
deliver a product/service to the business units via a separate value stream? Also, some of
the executives were wondering how they would allocate resources to act on some of the
transformation plans that they were going to develop. How would they prioritize their
actions, since the effort required for the number of actions would most likely be greater
than the available resources? The discussions were enthusiastic and the participants
seemed to have a common desire to figure out how they would enable the transformation
of the enterprise. With time running out in the meeting, Ray Leblanc decided to wrap up
the meeting with some final comments and actions:
"I think we have uncovered some good insights into our current leanness. We
should not be worried about our exact score, but rather what the individual
LESAT levels are telling us about ESI's current lean maturity. We have already
identified some actionable issues, and can incorporate them in our strategic
plans. Since Allison is the VP of lean, I suggest we task her with helping us
prioritize actions identified from this assessment and we should then reconvene
in about a month to coordinate and agree upon our transformation plans, both
for this fiscal year and for the long term as well."
The executive committee applauded Allison's effort for orchestrating the assessment
process and were excited about the next steps. Allison went to lunch and spent several
hours reviewing the LESAT data.
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
Questions for Discussion
1. What is management's apparent understanding of lean?
2. Is ESI a lean enterprise?
3. What is the data saying? Does it support leadership's view?
4. What does the variability within the scores (Range) indicate?
5. Are the goals set by the president realistic or even achievable?
6. What is right/wrong with management's means of setting goals for becoming a lean
enterprise?
7. Are Allison's next steps clear? What are they?
Appendix A – Generic Capability Maturity Levels
Capability Maturity Level
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001 Generic Definition
Some awareness of this practice; sporadic improvement
activities may be underway in a few areas.
General awareness; informal approach deployed in a few
areas with varying degrees of effectiveness and
sustainment.
A systematic approach /methodology deployed in varying
stages across most areas; facilitated with metrics; good
sustainment.
On-going refinement and continuous improvement across
the enterprise; improvement gains are sustained.
Exceptional, well-defined, innovative approach is fully
deployed across the extended enterprise (across internal
and external value streams); recognized as best practice.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
Appendix B – Current State LESAT Results
SECTION 1 - LEAN TRANSFORMATION/LEADERSHIP
TTL LINK
Lean Practice
State
Mean
Range
Current
3.5
1
I.A.2. Focus on customer value
Current
2.0
2
I.A.3. Leveraging the extended enterprise
Current
3.0
1
I.B.1. Learning and education in ‘lean’ for
enterprise leaders
I.B.2. Senior management commitment
Current
2.5
1
Current
3.5
1
I.B.3 Lean Enterprise Vision
Current
2.2
1
I.B.4. A sense of urgency
Current
2.4
1
I.C.1. Understanding the current value stream
Current
1.7
2
I.C.2. Enterprise flow
Current
2.0
1
I.C.3. Designing the future value stream
Current
1.5
1
I.C.4. Performance measures
Current
1.6
2
I.D.1. Enterprise organizational orientation
Current
2.0
2
I.D.2. Relationships based on mutual trust
Current
2.2
1
I.D.3. Open and timely communications
Current
2.0
1
I.D.4. Employee empowerment
Current
2.5
1
I.D.5. Incentive alignment
Current
1.4
2
I.D.6. Innovation encouragement
Current
2.8
1
I.D.7. Lean change agents
Current
2.2
1
I.E.1. Enterprise level lean implementation
plan
Current
1.9
1
I.E.2. Commit resources for lean
improvements
I.E.3. Provide education and training
Current
3.0
1
Current
1.9
1
I.F.1. Development of detailed plans based on
enterprise plan
I.F.2. Tracking detailed implementation
Current
1.2
1
Current
2.0
1
I.G.1. Structured continuous improvement
process
Current
1.6
2
I.G.2. Monitoring lean progress
Current
2.0
2
I.G.3. Nurturing the process
Current
2.0
1
I.G.4. Capturing lessons learned
Current
2.0
1
I.G.5. Impacting enterprise strategic planning
Current
2.0
2
I.A Enterprise strategic planning I.A.1. Integration of lean in strategic planning
process
I.B Adopt Lean Paradigm
I.C Focus on the Value Stream
I.D Develop lean Structure and
Behavior
I.E Create and Refine
Implementation Plan
I.F Implement Lean Initiatives
I.G Focus on Continuous
Improvement
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
SECTION II - LIFE CYCLE PROCESSES
TTL LINK
II.A. Business Acquisition and
Program Management
Lean Practice
State
Mean
Range
Current
1.9
1
Current
2.4
1
Current
3.0
1
Current
2.8
2
Current
2.4
1
Current
2.4
1
Current
3.0
2
II.C.2. Incorporate downstream stakeholder
values into products and processes
II.C.3. Integrate product and process
development
II.D.1. Define and develop supplier network
Current
3.2
1
Current
2.4
1
Current
1.4
1
II.D.2. Optimize network-wide performance
Current
1.8
1
Current
1.9
1
Current
2.0
1
Current
1.5
2
Current
2.0
1
II.F.2. Distribute product in lean fashion
Current
1.5
1
II.F.3. Enhance value of delivered products
and services to customers and the enterprise
II.F.4. Provide post delivery service,
support and sustainability
Current
2.0
1
2.3
2
II.A.1. Leverage lean capability for business
growth
II.A.2. Optimize the capability and utilization
of assets
II.A.3. Provide capability to manage risk,
cost, schedule and performance
II.A.4. Resource and empower program
development efforts
II.B.1. Establish a requirements definition
II. B. Requirements Definition
process to optimize lifecycle value
II.B.2. Utilize data from the extended
enterprise to optimize future requirement
definitions
II.C. Develop Product and Process II.C.1. Incorporate customer value into design
of products and processes
II.D. Supply Chain Management
II.D.3. Foster innovation and knowledgesharing throughout the supplier network
II.E.1. Utilize production knowledge and
II.E. Produce Product
capabilities for competitive advantage
II.E.2. Establish and maintain a lean
production system
II.F. Distribute and Service Product II.F.1. Align sales and marketing to
production
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
Current
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lean Aerospace Initiative
SECTION III - ENABLING INFRASTRUCTURE
TTL LINK
III.A. Lean Organizational
Enablers
III.B. Lean Process Enablers
©Cory Hallam, MIT, 2001
Lean Practice
State
Mean
Range
III.A.1. Financial system supports lean
transformation
Current
1.1
1
III.A.2. Enterprise stakeholders pull required
financial information
III.A.3. Promulgate the learning organization
Current
2.0
1
Current
1.5
1
III.A.4. Enable the lean enterprise with
information systems and tools
III.A.5. Integration of environmental
protection, heath and safety into the business
III.B.1. Process standardization
Current
1.8
2
Current
2.9
1
Current
1.4
1
III.B.2. Common tools and systems
Current
1.2
1
III.B.3. Variation reduction
Current
2.0
2
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